Q: What do the business and government travel planners in your organization look for in a destination when making travel arrangements for groups large and small?

A: One thing we do look at is whether a city is in the top 10 list of cities that have low travel taxes, which includes hotel and car taxes. We do an annual study, and San Diego is very competitive. Ideally, you want low taxes, and those that do come in are invested back into projects that benefit the business traveler, like improving the convention center. Where we struggle is when we have high taxes to penalize the business traveler to offset budget deficits or pet projects.

The airport is also important, having proper facilities to get through security and if it’s well laid out with good signage, good transportation, all that affects how much companies will want to come back.

Q: What are the biggest challenges your membership faces these days, especially in the areas of air travel and security?

A: The major issues we’re looking at are transparency about pricing and distribution, making sure buyers have access to the information they need to make good purchasing decisions, taxes that don’t punish our industry, and moving through the system efficiently. And with the recent global terror announcements, as always, our industry bears the burden of managing risk when they travel.

Back when sequestration was threatening air traffic controller layoffs, it was really frustrating to us. It was all a political dispute that was holding our industry hostage. We lobbied very aggressively to make sure we were heard, and in a matter of days were able to get the issue resolved, but in the meantime travelers were affected. That’s really frustrating, because that’s so disruptive to business travel and business in general.

Q: Business travel and group meetings took a big hit during the recession. What is the outlook for such travel?

A: For the U.S. outlook, we’ve now recovered back to just above the levels we were at in 2008. It’s been a long recovery road, and we’ve seen some modest growth, about 4.5 percent in total business travel expenditures. We’re anticipating 5.9 percent growth next year and more modest growth in subsequent years. By the end of 2014, China will overtake the U.S as the world’s largest business travel market.